The Lamoine Hotel: Symbol of Heritage and Community

Sunday

Mar 24, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By John HallwasMcDonough County Voice

The recent relocation of The McDonough County Voice, from the historic Lamoine Hotel building to the former J. C. Penny store on the west side of the square, calls attention to a crucial community purpose: Macomb’s effort to exemplify America’s small-town heritage, as a means of popular appeal, through preserving and adapting the buildings in our downtown area.

The Voice (a re-titled continuation of the The Macomb Eagle and Macomb Journal) has occupied the old hotel’s lower floor since 1998, and the decision to relocate onto the square seems a good one in many ways. The Penny building is a somewhat more modern structure (built in 1940), with ample nearby parking, and the number of vacant buildings on the square is thereby diminished.

But the move also forces us to finally and effectively deal with an issue that has been variously discussed since the Lamoine Hotel stopped functioning as a hotel in 1986: What should be done with that building—and how?

The first part of that question is relatively easy to answer: It should be renovated into downtown living space, a condominium building. Community after community in our time has created condo units near the downtown area. Those have the advantage of allowing walking access to local shops and restaurants, which is good for those businesses as well as convenient for the condo residents. In Macomb’s case, the railroad station is also less than a block north and the post office is only two blocks south. There are also churches within walking distance, as well as the Western Illinois Museum and the Arts Center. The building faces a lovely park, too.

If our community was choosing a location for a residential center, we could not do better than the place occupied by the Lamoine Hotel.

Moreover, with the number of senior citizens rising sharply (by 2030 some 70 million Americans will be over 65), a well-renovated, well-located residential structure for convenient independent living would surely be an attractive option, especially for those who want to minimize or do without driving and still have access to a wide range of community features.

But there’s even more at stake. Along with our 1872 courthouse and our half-gone and dilapidated, pre-Civil War Randolph House hotel building, the Lamoine Hotel is one of the three most historically significant buildings in our downtown. Although built in the earlier 20th century, its traditional façade also harmonizes with the 19th-century look of that area.

Moreover, no building more clearly symbolized community to the people of Macomb generations ago. In fact, town leaders planned it (during 1925-1926) as an historic statement, a building that would both link with our local past and represent the town’s progressive potential.

That meaning was especially evident at the huge cornerstone-laying ceremony, held on September 15, 1926. As the Macomb Journal pointed out, that ceremony included not only a parade and speeches, plus “an exceptionally large crowd” that sang “America” and prayed for God’s support, but the depositing of cornerstone documents that expressed the town’s sense of heritage and common purpose. The Journal fortunately printed those writings.

Town historian Alex Holmes, who had come to the community as a child, before the Civil War, wrote a document on “Macomb Hotels,” which praised that aspect of local heritage, stretching back to the 1831 two-room log tavern built on the square’s west side by noted pioneer James Clarke. Holmes recalled seeing that structure in 1853, when it was known as Brown’s Hotel. And he described such other historic forerunners as the American House, the Randolph House, the Park Hotel, and the Jolly Hotel.

The cornerstone documents also included “A Message to Our Descendants,” by Frank Harris of the Journal. He reflected on the town’s pre-Civil War past, when “the Randolph House was the finest hotel in western Illinois,” and he asserted, “With the completion of the Hotel Macomb, this city will again have that distinction.” (As that comment reveals, during planning and construction, the new building’s name was the Hotel Macomb. When it opened in 1927, the name was changed to the Lamoine Hotel, partly to suggest regional significance.)

Harris also praised the noted developments by recent American generations, including “the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, moving pictures, and radio,” and he obviously saw the new hotel — as did all of its developers — as a symbol of the town’s participation in an amazing, progressive era of cultural interconnection.

The hotel, which eventually had 86 rooms, plus a lovely lounge, an elegant dining room, a spacious ballroom, and a coffee shop, was funded by some 400 investors from the Macomb area, who purchased $230,000 in stock, so it was very much a community effort. And it became “the” community center for decades. As a 1974 “Journal” article indicated, “The Lamoine Hotel . . . was the Mecca of social life. Dances, banquets, and service clubs patronized it, and its coffee shop was the most popular informal eating place in town.”

I worked briefly for the hotel, as a desk clerk, in 1967, when it was owned by Paul Beard, and many in the community then had wonderful memories of events held there and of noted guests like Amelia Earhart, Knute Rockne, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Beard finally sold it in 1974. By then, competition from modern motels had made the Lamoine Hotel operation a struggle.

In the years since the hotel closed in 1986, several businessmen have proposed that it be renovated into condos. David Pyles, plus two co-investors, hoped to accomplish that in the mid-1990s, but although the building was generally in decent shape, such work would be costly, and the city government did not foster the project. Ten years later, builder Jason Welch and his partner, Richard Trembath, hoped to create “Residences at the Lamoine,” featuring one, two, and three-bedroom condos—and an improved façade — but that $2.5-million project also fell through.

What our town needs now, more than anything else, is firm commitment to getting the renovation done. There ought to be well-focused discussions about what it would take, including what kind of local governmental support would be necessary. Failure to do so means a declining eyesore for us — not to mention a severe blow to our hopes for an attractive, historic Macomb.

Oddly enough, this challenge to us comes in explicit terms, from the very generation that created the hotel. As project chairman A. L. Hainline said at the cornerstone ceremony, “We did what some said couldn’t be done . . . because there was unity of action.” That should inspire us. And in his “Message to Our Descendants,” Frank Harris spoke for all those townspeople, to us:

“This was another step forward for a bigger and better Macomb . . . and (it) is handed down to you to carry on. If the same cooperative energy and enterprise are shown by the people of your time, as mark those who conduct the affairs of Macomb today (in 1926), this city will continue, as it is now, the best of its size in this great State of Illinois.”

That kind of community appreciation, commitment, and cooperation is what it takes — and what the Lamoine Hotel most deeply symbolizes. The practical and spiritual impact of our failure to meet this challenge, regarding that building, would be enormous.

Author and local historian John Hallwas is a columnist for the McDonough County Voice. Research assistance was provided by WIU archivist Kathy Nichols.

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